


The Flames That Licked My Apple Tree

by T J Feardorcha (MonsterTesk)



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: M/M, sort of!songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-03
Updated: 2013-08-03
Packaged: 2017-12-22 06:46:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/910172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MonsterTesk/pseuds/T%20J%20Feardorcha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Flames That Licked My Apple Tree/ Were redder and brighter than/ Any fruit that I could grow./My apples were brown before the burning/Now they are ripe ripe red./Illuminating the Earth/And changing composition/To simply become fire./When the flames climbed my apple tree,/I lost an orchard but/My orchard lost nothing./It only fell/And hit/The ground.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Flames That Licked My Apple Tree

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this forever ago. One day I just put Florence + The Machine on repeat and let rip. This is what happened.

When Merlin was twelve Will convinced him to climb a tree in Carter’s pitiful orchard. He had just had another growth spurt and was now a half head taller than Will. He was all thick, round and pink knees attached to thin wiry thighs. Merlin had made it to the top with little ease (without knocking off any of the fruit which had been the wager).

He sat there, staring out over all of Ealdor and had felt… unsettlingly too big for it. This moment of realization of his home’s insignificance had left him feeling confined and itchy. It had been this moment that the rotten branch he had perched on had given from under him and he had fallen with a sharp noise and widespread arms.

Merlin woke in the town’s idea of a physician’s cot with a gasp, starting out of dreams of falling endlessly. In his dreams he had laughed an untamed bellow of noise that Merlin had never heard before.

 

Meeting Arthur had been like hitting the ground constantly. That moment where his breathe had been forced out of his body and he knew- oh he knew- it was going to hurt soon. It would be this jubilant pain full of a promise that later, maybe, he would know better. Though, it never seemed that Merlin learned not to stick his being on the pyre for Arthur. He was, and would always be, the most important thing in Merlin’s life. No matter how many times his loyalty and service to his future king would leave him bruised and maybe a bit more broken, Merlin would always reach for Arthur in times of trouble.

Because Arthur, the stupid noble prat, needed Merlin more than he would possibly ever know and even though it killed him to do it Merlin would always be his most faithful servant. Hiding in shadows, never getting the recognition he deserved, being treated like a fool… he would do it all every day if it meant Arthur was safe. Merlin would live in Arthur’s shadows, constantly rolling from the blows he deflected off of his prince if it meant that Arthur was safe and whole, happy and alive.

 

Meeting Gwaine had been nothing like meeting Arthur. Gwaine lacked the rectitude that Arthur had; that severe understanding of right and wrong wasn’t precisely missing so much as malleable. Gwaine’s jocular attitude hid a pragmatism that Merlin could not resist. If Arthur was the stop-all foundation of the world, then Gwaine gave it gravity.

Being with Gwaine was falling. It was that instant after the branch gave out and Merlin’s heart soared, arms spread wide, accomplishment still plain on his face. Gwaine was an eternity of knowing that Merlin wasn’t flying and being more than happy with the rush of wind in his ears and the certainty of impending Earth. With him came the chronic instinct to grab on and never let go.

 

When he’d asked Will about his fall after he had healed enough to leave the cot, Will had been angry with him, bitter. It took Merlin two weeks to get Will to tell him why.

“Because you laughed like you were made of fire.”

Merlin had dismissed this—everyone knew that wasn’t possible. Not even people with magic could do that. Will was just angry that Merlin had won their bet.

 

Now Merlin knows what Will meant. With Gwaine nearby, it’s like a chilling flame inside his chest, constantly burning like winter’s first snow against his lips, mouth open and head back so he can catch as much of the snow falling to Earth as he can. It will melt on his tongue but never quench his thirst.

 

Arthur was crashing, Gwaine was falling, and Merlin will take it all. 


End file.
